The Dinner Special podcast

  • Episodes
  • Contact

126: Ice Sanford: Tasting Food from Around the World

June 8, 2016 by Gabriel 2 Comments

Ice Sanford of Foolproof Living on The Dinner Special podcast featured image
http://traffic.libsyn.com/thedinnerspecial/TDS126.mp3

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS

Ice Sanford of Foolproof Living on The Dinner Special podcast talking about Tasting Food from Around the World.Foolproof Living

Ice was born with itchy feet. She grew up in Turkey, lived 10 years in the States, four years in the British Virgin Islands, and has recently moved back to the U.S. A food and lifestyle photographer and full-time blogger, she is a firm believer that if you know how to read, you know how to cook. On Foolproof Living, Ice shares easy to follow recipes that are helpful and full of flavor, as well as stories about her travels.

I am so happy to have Ice Sanford of Foolproof Living with me here on the show today.

(*All photos below are Ice’s.)

On Her Favorite Food in Turkey:

A big plate full of Quinoa and Avocado Salad with Blood Oranges and Fennel placed on an old farm style table is photographed from the top view.

A big plate full of Quinoa and Avocado Salad with Blood Oranges and Fennel.

I am a big fan of breakfast. I’m a morning person. I like to get up early and have breakfast. To this day, I do a lot of toast and feta cheese. Feta cheese is so big in Turkey, and olives, my American friends make fun of me because I eat olives in the morning, but olives, jam like cherry jam and homemade marmalade and different cheeses, but mostly feta cheese is big, big back home.

Feta cheese in Turkey, it’s amazing there. Really. It’s so fatty and so delicious, and I just love it. And I have a lot of friends ask me how can you live without this? It’s hard. It’s my favorite thing.

On the Food Culture in British Virgin Islands:

A bowl of braised baby artichoke salad with white beans and shaved manchego is photographed from the top.

A bowl of braised baby artichoke salad with white beans and shaved manchego.

It’s a combination of a lot of food cultures. When you’re talking about the Caribbean, you have so many little islands and little cultures in there, and they are all living together. We were living on a small island called Virgin Gorda. It’s a nine-mile long island, half an hour ferry ride from the big island Tortola, which is the city, a big, big capital basically. Each island has islanders from the neighboring island like Jamaica, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Nevis and Kitts. So they all bring their own culture and we would have these little food gatherings every so often on the island, and you get to taste a lot of different cuisines.

We were just talking about it with some friends the other day. On one of those, we heard that Nevis and Saint Kitts. Those people eat a lot of monkey meat because they have so many monkeys over there, and it’s just a part of culture. I went there because I tried to eat everything, at least know the taste of it and it was gone. Right after they opened their area, it was just gone. And my husband was like, “I can’t eat that. It’s too close to home.” But for me, I wanted to taste it. A lot of curry, they eat a lot of curry, chicken, seafood is big, and a lot of sweet tastes like putting pineapple, coconut, those are obviously in abundance.

On a Recipe She Picked Up from Her Travels:

Mexican Style 2 eggs topped with guacomole, pasilla chile sauce, Mexican cheese, and fresh cilantro served in a Mexican dish.

Mexican Style 2 eggs topped with guacomole, pasilla chile sauce, Mexican cheese, and fresh cilantro served in a Mexican dish.

One of my favorite recipes, it’s on the blog as well, is huevos rancheros, I am a big fan of huevos rancheros. A couple of years ago, we went to San Miguel de Allende, and there my husband and I went to different restaurants every morning and ordered huevos rancheros every single day just to find what is the best one. If you think about it, it’s just eggs served with some sort of a sauce over a corn tortilla. But this one place called Posada Corazon, a small inn in the heart of the city, had the best, like absolutely the best huevos rancheros because the cook made this pathia sauce, chili sauce, and it was just phenomenal.

She didn’t speak English and I didn’t speak good Spanish, and we tried to really communicate, but it came to the point where it was just not working. She was trying to show me what she used, but then I went to the hotel and made the person at the front desk call her and get the recipe. And since then, it’s our favorite, favorite dish. And I shared that on the blog.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

America’s Test Kitchen.

What are some food blogs or food websites we have to know about?

I love Artful Desperado, Gabriel, his work, his photography takes my breath away. I love The Bojon Gourmet via Alanna. She is amazing. Her recipes, to me, they are all doable. I want to make everything. I also like The Clever Carrot, Emilie. She is really talented. There are so many, Snixy Kitchen, I love, and Adventures in Cooking. Those are some that I really like.

Who do you follow on Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook or Snapchat that make you happy?

Oh my God, there are so many people. There is an account on Pinterest and Instagram called A Daily Something. I really liked that. Witanddelight, I really like. There is another girl on Instagram, Mademoisellepoirot. Her photography is amazing, her color schemes, those are the ones that I really enjoy.

What is the most unusual or treasured item in your kitchen?

My mom’s mixing bowls.

Name one ingredient you used to dislike but now you love.

I can’t say I love it, but I’m working on it. And this is so in a way, embarrassing to say as a food blogger living in the U.S., bacon.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

Flavor Bible, I go to the supermarket with The Vegetarian Flavor Bible. We have a Farmer’s Market here and you can find every kind of vegetable in there and some of them I’ve never seen, but I would like to try. So I go there and look at what would match with this. That’s a very good resource if you’re creating recipes or if you’re trying to finish stuff in your fridge and don’t know what matches with what.

Cook’s Illustrated is a really good resource for me because if you don’t know something, just go there and look. And then, some food blogger cookbooks. I think those guys and gals, they are just doing an amazing job. Seven Spoon cookbook is like a go-to cookbook. I made a lot of things in there. Jamie Oliver is really good, Thomas Keller if you want to learn how to do certain things the professional way. Those are ones that I go to often.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

I like anything Sia. Lately, I’m really, really impressed with her voice and just love it.

On Keeping Posted with Ice:

ce Sanford of Foolproof Living on The Dinner Special podcast talking about keeping posted with her.

I do update my Instagram regularly, as well as Facebook. Facebook is Foolproof Living and Instagram is aysegul.sanford. You can find me there.

Subscribe to The Dinner Special podcast

Filed Under: Podcast Tagged With: A Daily Something, Adventures in Cooking, America's Test Kitchen, Artful Desperado, Atlanta, Aysegul Sanford, Cook's Illustrated, Feta Cheese, Food Blog, Food Blogger, Food Photographer, Foolproof Living, Huevos Rancheros, Ice Sanford, Jamie Oliver, San Miguel de Allende, Seven Spoons, Sia, Snixy Kitchen, The Bojon Gourmet, The British Virgin Islands, The Clever Carrot, The Vegetarian Flavor Bible, Thomas Keller, Turkey, Virgin Gorda

093: Sylvia Fountaine: Traveling a Winding Path Towards Food Entrepreneurship

November 23, 2015 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

Sylvia Fountaine of Feasting At Home on The Dinner Special podcast
http://traffic.libsyn.com/thedinnerspecial/TDS093.mp3

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS

Sylvia Fountaine of Feasting At Home on The Dinner Special podcast talking about traveling a winding path towards food entrepreneurship.

Feasting At Home

Sylvia’s path has been a winding one, and has included practicing as a therapist for a few years, starting and operating a successful vegetarian restaurant for 10 years, and now, she’s the chef and owner of Feast Catering Company. On her blog, Feasting At Home, Sylvia shares healthy, seasonal, and global recipes to help us get inspired to try something new in the kitchen.

I am so happy to have Sylvia Fountaine of Feasting At Home here on the show today.

On Her Journey To Starting a Restaurant and Catering Company:

In college, I started off my business degree, and I was living down in southern California, and half way through, I got the opportunity to go to Europe for six months and just play around. It was really the first time that I noticed beauty, I guess. And so, over there, I picked up a camera and just fell in love with photography. Six months after that, after I came home, and it was time to go back to college, I wanted to change my business degree to photography. But my father said, “No.” And he said basically, “If you change your degree, I won’t pay for your college anymore.” So I kind of didn’t have a choice. I finished my business degree, and then ended up getting married, and putting photography behind me, moving up to the northwest, and then, just went into a completely different field.

I got a Master’s in psychology and ended up being a counselor, which was also not really what I wanted to do. It’s funny how you end up doing what other people think you should be doing, without actually asking yourself. And so, two years into that, I would find myself daydreaming as I was walking downtown, I was still a therapist, walking downtown to go to lunch and I would always pass this empty brick building. And I’d look in the brick building, and I could visualize this restaurant in there. And all throughout college, I worked in restaurants, just waiting tables, and I just had this fantasy of having this other life.

It wasn’t until I was actually in a counselling session with a client, that I was telling this person, you know, “You can do whatever you want. You can do whatever you want. It’s not too late.” And as I was saying these words, it dawned on me that I could do whatever I wanted. And even though I just got my Master’s, and spent some money getting it, I could change careers. So I did.

I opened a restaurant with a friend, and just went on a completely different path. We had no idea what we were doing, but it was an adventure. Did that for 10 years, and it was the time to sell, we had a really good offer, so sold the restaurant. I took a year off and started asking myself, “Okay, Sylvia, what do you really wanna do?” And I never asked myself before, really.

I decided I wanted to keep cooking because I loved cooking so I started a catering business. And then, eventually, somehow that led to the blog, and so that’s what I do now, both catering and my blog.

On Learning How to Cook:

When we first opened the restaurant, I was in the front of the house, and then halfway into it, my friend and I switched jobs. So I became the chef and she became front of the house. But all throughout the time, I was cooking too. And basically I learned how to cook just by cooking. I learned how to do most things in my life by just doing them. I didn’t know what I was doing. I didn’t know how to open a restaurant. I didn’t know how to run a restaurant. We learned as we went.

It wasn’t always pretty, we created a lot of little messes here and there, I mean, it was a fun ride. But you learn as you go. Same with the catering business, I mean, when I first started, I didn’t really know what I was doing, especially with the blog. I had no idea what I was doing.

On Keeping Things Fun in the Kitchen:

What always inspires me are things like produce that’s in season. So whatever’s in season, if it’s a really good, like, tomato that is at its peak, I’ll look at it, and I’ll say, “What can I do with this tomato that I’ve never done before?” Or if I have a new spice, “What can I do with the spice that I’ve never tried before?” I think for me, it’s always grounded in the seasons, and then it’s also grounded in taking me away. In winter, I want to be warm somewhere, but we’re here stuck in snow. So I’ll think, “Oh, I want to go to Bali,” and then I’ll try to cook something from Bali.

On Finnish and Egyptian Cuisine:

Finland is a Nordic country. They have a lot of lakes there. They have a lot of fish. So, a typical meal is fish and little baby potatoes and dill and kind of mild flavors.

When my dad would cook Egyptian food, he would use really warming spices like cumin and coriander, onion, garlic, tomatoes, just really warm, almost Mediterranean flavors. My dad actually came from Egypt and my mom actually came from Finland. They moved to the United States when they were in their 40s. My dad grew up in a little, tiny village in Egypt, and he was very, very poor. And even though he had relative success when he came to the States, he still is extremely frugal when it came to food. And so, he often would make zucchini dishes, and just very simple dishes out of very humble ingredients, but then his flavors, like in spices that he would use, would really elevate them.

On Her Travels and Food:

They really exposed me to new ingredients. There’s just so many ingredients in the world, and we only see a small portion of them where we live. And so it’s just, kind of like, how a painter has a palette and there’s a certain amount of colors, it’s given me more colors to work with in creating meals, just giving more ingredients to work with.

I really love the food in Vietnam. I was blown away by the food there, just because it was just so flavorful and so fresh, and healthy, and hot, and spicy. Just all the things that I love. But I was really surprised by how relatively healthy it was too — light. And I would go back there in a second for this one banh mi stand. It was just amazing.

On Where Her Culinary Heart Lives:

That’s a tough question, and I actually thought about that for a while, because it’s hard for me to pick a favorite cuisine. And when I thought about, “Where does my heart live,” truly it lives wherever I am at, because that’s where the best produce is going to be — the produce that’s closest to where you are. So here, in the Northwest, I have access to some incredible locally grown produce, at its peak. It hasn’t traveled for days to get here. It’s already ripe. And to me, that’s where my heart is, because that’s where the best food is, wherever you are.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

I watch Top Chef, or I have in the past. And there’s a show called A Chef’s Life I’ve been watching.

What are some food blogs or food websites we have to know about?

I think my favorite food blog is Local Milk.

Who do you follow on Pinterest, Instagram, or Facebook or Snapchat that make you happy?

On Instagram, I follow, this has nothing to do with food, Tasmania, the place, because, every time I see a photo of it, I want to go there. I follow Local Milk, that’s all I can think of right now.

What is the most unusual or treasured item in your kitchen?

My most treasured item is my mother’s salt cellar. It’s like a Finnish salt box.

Name one ingredient you used to dislike but now you love.

That one’s hard, because I don’t think I disliked any ingredient, except for canned peas, but I still don’t like canned peas.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

For me, because I cook professionally, I like cookbooks that teach me things. Like Thomas Keller’s Bouchon and French Laundry. Cookbooks like that, that have a lot of new knowledge where I can learn.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

This is going to really age me a lot, and my husband is a punk rocker, so that aside, there is a song by the cellist Yo-Yo Ma, that does The Mission soundtrack, and there is a song on there called, The Falls. And it’s just cello, playing this beautiful song, and there’s just something about that song that, when I’m cooking, I feel like electricity is flowing though me. It just gets all the creative juices flowing, it makes me really happy.

On Keeping Posted with Sylvia:

Sylvia Fountaine of Feasting At Home on The Dinner Special podcast talking about how to keep posted with her.

Either Instagram or Facebook, probably Instagram.

 

Subscribe to The Dinner Special podcast

Filed Under: Podcast Tagged With: A Chef's Life, Bouchon, Caterer, Egyptian Cuisine, Feasting at Home, Finnish Cuisine, Food Blog, Food Blogger, Local Milk, Sylvia Fountaine, The French Laundry, Thomas Keller, Top Chef, Travel, Vegetarian Restaurant, Vietnamese food, Yo-Yo Ma

073: Joanne Ozug: Cooking From Scratch with Natural Ingredients

September 2, 2015 by Gabriel 4 Comments

Joanne Ozug of Fifteen Spatulas on The Dinner Special podcast talking about how to keep up with her.
http://traffic.libsyn.com/thedinnerspecial/TDS073.mp3

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS

Joanne Ozug of Fifteen Spatulas on The Dinner Special podcast talking about cooking from scratch with natural ingredients.

Fifteen Spatulas

Joanne has a deep molecular interest in food. On her blog, and YouTube channel, she not only shares recipes using whole foods and natural ingredients, Joanne focuses on explaining the how’s and why’s of cooking and tries to encourage us to cook from scratch.

I am so happy to have Joanne Ozug of Fifteen Spatulas joining me here on the show today.

(*All images below are Joanne’s.)

On Her Blog:

It was about five years ago. I had a background in finance and business and economics, and I just hit this wall where I was like, “I am not liking this at all.” I just was really unhappy, and I really wanted to do something in food. I loved food probably since I was in the womb. I love food. And at the time I was living rural Georgia. My husband is in the Navy, and he was stationed in this really rural part in southern Georgia, like an hour from Honey Boo Boo, just to give you an idea of how rural it was. So there wasn’t a lot of food opportunity down there. So I decided to start the blog as something that could serve as an online resume or like some body of work where I could pour my recipes and stuff into while we were stationed down there, because we moved around a lot. I knew it was going to be somewhat temporary but just something for me to do. I had no idea what it would turn into but that’s how I started.

On Her YouTube Channel:

Joanne Ozug of Fifteen Spatulas on The Dinner Special podcast talking about her YouTube channel.

Since the beginning of Fifteen Spatulas, I’ve always done step-by-step photos, because when I started there wasn’t a lot of that and you’d see a picture of a recipe and it’s like, “That’s great, but how does it look in the middle?” So I focused on step-by-step photos and then there were some recipes where the photos, it almost wasn’t enough. It would have been better explained if I could do it in a video. So I started dabbling a little bit in video, and it’s interesting because when I first started on YouTube, it was just kind of a hosting platform to post videos on my blog. But I discovered that there was a separate different community on YouTube, so again, like the story of how I started, is a little bit different from how it is now and how it evolved. Originally, I just wanted to give people a little bit more information visually on how to make the recipes.

On Her Process for Her Videos:

It’s interesting because even YouTube and my blog, they like different foods. I’m still making food from scratch on both places, but they like different kinds of recipes. So for my YouTube, again I have that list where I write out some ideas and then I’ll refine them further, and I’ll start story boarding them and planning them out. Most of the stuff now I try to storyboard and script. I didn’t use to but it helps to do that. And so from there I’ll go ahead and I’ll film all the close-ups and then the wide shots and then edit, and then put it up. It’s not too bad actually. I’ve got it down to the steps to get me to the end.

The thing that’s tough for me about the blog is the writing part. I will bang out the photos, the recipe, everything will already be set to go, and the last part that I leave for the end is always the writing. It’s the hardest part for me. For a video, you kind of script a little bit but it’s not fully scripted, you’re just talking. So I feel like that’s not as hard for me.

Video requires a lot more work but you have that writing part always like, “What do I say? How do I be witty on the Internet?”

On Her Curiosity Around Cooking:

Joanne Ozug of Fifteen Spatulas on The Dinner Special podcast talking about her curiosity for cooking.

That definitely started later. I think early on from a young age, you’re like food is delicious! I love food. But you start making it, I remember I think some time in middle school, I started watching Food Network, and I feel like that’s really where my curiosity for the how’s and why’s of food really started. Because there’s some really amazing people on there. Like Alton Brown is one of my favorite people in food ever, and he’s the god of cooking technique and how-to’s. So that’s kind of where it started.

I feel like if you know certain concepts, then you can stray away from recipes. And just cook based on what you find at the grocery store that’s interesting. There’s just a freedom that comes with knowing those basic things, where you can truly become a cook on your own instead of making recipes. There’s nothing wrong with that to start, of course, but that’s why I love it so much, is you can just play around a lot more when you know the rules of the road.

On Cooking From Scratch with Whole Foods and Natural Ingredients:

Joanne Ozug of Fifteen Spatulas on The Dinner Special podcast talking about cooking from scratch with whole foods and natural ingredients.

I ate so much junky processed foods when I was younger. The turning point for me was my freshman year in college. I was so sick. I was throwing up every night, going to the hospital, sometimes I had to have an endoscopy and seeing these GI doctors, and they couldn’t figure out what was wrong and why I was throwing up every day. I was not bulimic or any of that stuff, it was uncontrolled, I just felt so sick. And my GI doctor thought that maybe I should try making my own food. So he wrote me a letter to get out of the school meal plan.

It was just so processed and gross, so I started cooking just in my college dorm room from scratch, just with wholesome real ingredients, real food, and I wasn’t sick anymore. The thing that’s crazy about that is there have been times where I’ve gone to potlucks where I knew there was processed food, like when people are saying, “I made three boxes of mashed potatoes.” I’m like, “Boxes of mashed potatoes? Mashed potatoes don’t come in boxes.” My husband and I both would get sick after we eat that.

So it’s just a reminder of that at least for my body, and I won’t speak for everyone, but for my body, I need to eat food where I know what’s in it and it’s wholesome real food.

It’s so funny because I think cooking from scratch can be laborious, if you make, beef bourguignon or something. But there are so many recipes from scratch that are quick and easy, and totally delicious. I feel like it’s just totally a stigma that exists for whatever reason for some people until they find out or, they’re shown by someone that, “Hey, that’s actually not hard at all.”

I’m not trying to knock on some of these products, but the pre-packaged pancake mix, for instance. I’d see someone make that and think, “You still have to add the eggs and the milk!” I have a great pancake recipe on my website called, 100% whole wheat pancakes, and I think it’s like five ingredients. People go absolutely crazy for them. They’re so easy.

On Some Resources For Learning to Cook from Scratch:

Joanne Ozug of Fifteen Spatulas on The Dinner Special podcast talking about some resources for learning how to cook from scratch.

One publication I love that people probably already know about, but I really love America’s Test Kitchen and Cooks Illustrated. I love that they test things, like they’re science heavy behind the food, but they try to keep it relatively simple.

Probably my favorite YouTube channel right now is my friend, Gemma. Her channel is called, Gemma’s Bigger Bolder Baking. She’s a pastry chef from Ireland. She lives in California now. But she just has the most extravagant, ridiculous desserts, like totally out of control, but that’s how I think it should be. They’re just outrageous, but everyone can make them. They’re from scratch. They’re just gorgeous. My friend Alyssia from Mind Over Munch does a kind of healthier spin on some everyday foods, I really like that. I mean there’s so many, like SORTEDfood even. It’s four English guys and they just make food. It’s tons of banter and good eats and it’s a lot of fun.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

I love Barefoot Contessa, and I love The Pioneer Woman show, Good Eats even though I don’t know if that’s on.

I love The Best Thing I Ever Ate, I love that show. Oh my gosh, I’ve gone to so many of those places they recommend to get what they love. I love Chopped too, even though it’s terrifying.

What are some food blogs or food websites we have to know about?

Some of my favorites are thelittlekitchen.net, Love and Olive Oil, that one is awesome. It’s my friend Lindsay. A farmgirl’s dabbles. I love Serious Eats, it’s not really a blog but a site, I love them.

Who do you follow on Pinterest, Instagram, or Facebook that make you happy?

I’m not on Pinterest much to be totally honest. I’m not a Pinterest person. I’m not having food people coming to mind, because Instagram I love following fashion people like Wendy’s Lookbook. Yeah, Wendy’s Lookbook comes to mind instantly.

What is the most unusual or treasured item in your kitchen?

I have this amazing, beautiful bowl that my best friend’s parents got for my wedding. It’s just a fruit bowl and I put onions, or bananas, whatever in there. And it just feels special because it’s for our wedding and I keep it out all the time, it’s really personal.

Name one ingredient you used to dislike but now you love.

Cilantro. Oh, my gosh. I don’t know what on earth happened. I hated cilantro for so long. Now, I want it in everything.

I think I ate out at a couple of places and I’m like, “This has cilantro in it, but you know I feel like it’s doing some good here.” And it just kind of crept its way into my heart.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

Okay, this is not really a cookbook. It’s more of a reference, but the Flavor Bible is the best cooking related book ever. You just go in and you’re like, “Hmm, I have some mangoes. Let’s see what pairs well with mangoes.” And it will tell you all the flavor affinities. What else do I love? I love Thomas Keller’s books too, I have a bunch of his.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

Arctic Monkeys band, they have a lot of albums.

On Keeping Posted with Joanne:

Joanne Ozug of Fifteen Spatulas on The Dinner Special podcast talking about how to keep up with her.

I would say my Instagram or my Facebook. Those are my two favorites, so I tend to be on them a lot.

 

Subscribe to The Dinner Special podcast

 

Filed Under: Podcast Tagged With: A farmgirl's dabbles, Alton Brown, America's Test Kitchen, Arctic Monkeys, Barefoot Contessa, Chopped, Cook's Illustrated, Cooking from Scratch, Fifteen Spatulas, Food Blog, Food Blogger, Food Network, Gemma's Bigger Bolder Baking, Good Eats, Honey Boo Boo, Joanne Ozug, Love and Olive Oil, Mind Over Munch, Natural Ingredients, Serious Eats, SORTEDfood, The Best Thing I Ever Ate, The Flavor Bible, The Pioneer Woman, thelittlekitchen.net, Thomas Keller, Videos, Wendy's Lookbook, Whole foods, YouTube

041: Nik Sharma: Exploring the Culinary Arts and Food Photography

May 27, 2015 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

Nik Sharma of A Brown Table on The Dinner Special podcast talking about starting his food blog.
http://traffic.libsyn.com/thedinnerspecial/TDS041.mp3

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS

Nik Sharma of A Brown Table on The Dinner Special podcast talking about exploring the culinary arts and food photography

A Brown Table

Nik grew up in India and the United States. The non-traditional dishes on his blog represents this experience. He believes in using fresh, seasonal whole foods and knowing where his ingredients come from. A Brown Table was recognized by Better Homes and Garden in 2014 as a top ten healthy food blog. Nik recently gave up his job in the pharmaceutical industry to follow his dream of learning more about the culinary arts.

I am so happy to have Nik Sharma of A Brown Table here on the show today.

(UPDATE: Since recording this episode, A Brown Table was chosen as the winner of the International Association of Best Culinary Professionals – Best Photo Based Culinary Blog of 2015, and is a Finalist in the 2015 Saveur Blog Awards for Best Photography.)

On His Upbringing in India:

I come from a mixed background where my dad is from the north and he grew up Hindu and my mother is Goan who grew up Catholic. So it’s an infusion of cultures which is what I try to reflect in my food, but it’s also something that I grew up with where you eat everything.

That is something that my parents gave us, both me and my sister the opportunity to do that. We were very fortunate in that sense to try everything out at least once. But make up your mind about it and then you decide. That is something I strongly believe in. I think people should explore food. There’s a lot out there. And have fun with it more than anything.

On His Interest in Cooking:

Nik Sharma of A Brown Table on The Dinner Special podcast talking about exploring the culinary arts and food photography talking about his interest in cooking.

Growing up, both my parents had day jobs. I think Thursdays were my day off from school and I had to take care of my sister at a certain point. So she would come home from school and she hated my mother’s food.

My mother’s a good cook but I feel like my grandmother, her mother, was a better cook. We always lean through with my grandmother’s food. Anyway, I started learning how to cook at that age because neither of us wanted to eat what my mother cooked. It was good food. It just wasn’t something that we were interested in so I started exploring, going through my mother’s cookbooks and notes that she had collected before getting married, and I started exploring those recipes by myself.

A lot of them were desserts. I have a strong sweet tooth that shows up quite a bit on my blog. So that’s when I started to cook.

I also spend a lot of time with my grandmother where I’d watch her cooking and she would talk about how you need to cut all the vegetables to the right size, they should all be similar, and stuff like that.

On His Culinary Influences:

For me, it’s been more to explore and see what’s out there because my personal belief is that I do not want to get restricted to be in one genre. I’d like to learn as much as I can because there’s so much out there and you live once. Why stop yourself?

Definitely when I moved here, there was definitely that stage where I wanted to taste a lot, get an idea. Because in Indian food, I think the flavors are a little stronger and there’s definitely a mix of what doesn’t match can actually be mixed and brought together in Indian cooking.

Whereas in Western food, it’s a little more mellow and subtle; flavors are kept subtle. So over the years, I’ve definitely learned to strive to get close to a mixed balance between the two. I think I’ve become better at it. I don’t think I’m an expert in any sense. But I think with each recipe, I try and strive for that.

On Experimenting with Indian Flavors:

Nik Sharma of A Brown Table on The Dinner Special podcast talking about experimenting with Indian flavors.

I always say start basic and simple. That’s how I’ve learned. I think a lot of the Indian food, we use a lot of combinations. So there’s like the garam masala, then there’s like when you make chana masala, there’s a separate mix. It’s nice for me. My experience has been to go back to the spice mix because that’s the root of all the flavor. Go back, make it from scratch.

You may find that certain ingredients in there, you may not like them individually but they actually make the dish up as a whole. So I think it’s important to go back to the basics. Knock everything down piece-by-piece and that’s something you learn in science.

When I worked in science, one of the things we do is hypothesis testing. Go back to the basics and break everything down and then build it up again from scratch. I think that really applies to food as well. I think not only with Indian food but any cuisine.

On Starting His Blog:

Nik Sharma of A Brown Table on The Dinner Special podcast talking about starting his food blog.

So I was in the habit of entertaining a lot of friends at home for a while. It’s something that I enjoyed doing. Then a couple of them, and I think this sounds a stereotypical way of friends or family members tell that, “You should start a blog.” I said, “Okay, let me go ahead and do this thing.” and it sucked. It sucked. It was way too much work for me and I decided to scrap the whole thing. Because I couldn’t keep up with it. I just started school. I was working full time. I was about to start in school in the evenings and it just wasn’t happening. It wasn’t coming together.

So then, a couple of months later, we had gone to visit my now mother-in-law’s house. She said, “I think you should go back and give it a shot.” So I said, “Well, I think my photography sucks,” number one, and all the blogs out there that I’m drawn to are visually just stunning. I can spend hours just scrolling back through the pages and I don’t have it.

I said, “Well, maybe I should invest a little money in a simple camera and then give it a shot.” So I went ahead and I did that. I started practicing a little bit. And then I thought, “Maybe I also need a concept and I wanted it to be something more personal. It didn’t matter if it’s mainstream or not.”

That’s the other thing in blogging. You have mainstream and then you have off-site, probably just never does well. And that’s where I was coming from. I said, “Let me talk about the food that I make at home. That’s a fusion of cultures. Let’s do that. Lets infuse things and see what happens. If it works, it works; if it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work.”

So I tried it again.

I started finding my voice and personality which is when I started falling in love with it. I think the main thing for me there was I was talking from my heart. My food was coming from my heart. I think that’s important in anything that you do. Blogging or a job, it should come from your heart, and then you’ll enjoy. And that worked for me.

On Finding His Style of Photography:

Nik Sharma of A Brown Table on The Dinner Special podcast talking about mastering his style of photography.

I think it’s really important to find your own voice. It takes time.

When I started blogging, one of the things that a lot of food bloggers, we do as a community is you go and submit a photograph to photo curating sites, which is all good and done deal at the end of the day. It gives you traffic but also you have to remember why you’re blogging. For me, it was expressing myself through food and also getting to be creative which I wasn’t getting to do at work.

Photo curating sites are good to a certain point. Take the advice they give you with a grain of salt and move on. When I stepped away from all of that, I feel I grew as a photographer, as a cook. That helped me because I stopped caring about the numbers.

In blogging, we get really focused on numbers so much. As soon as I stopped focusing on that, I felt happier with my work. I’m not saying I’m perfect right now. I’m definitely not. I still see faults in everything I do. But as a person, I feel happier with my work now. I think that’s what people need to focus on. Just be happy with what you do.

Alot of the times, the style that I’m doing now is something that I’ve always wanted to do. When all these sites people come and tell, “Don’t do this because they don’t want this. This is not good.” For me, the biggest step was putting my hands out. You see my hands a lot with my photographs. I like to do a lot of process shots because I’m not very good at writing, so I like to visually tell people. If I’m making a recipe, I’d like them visually to see what’s going on.

For me, that’s an easier way to get that message across. So for me, that was something important but a lot of sites did not want that. I said, “Well, let me take a chance and see how this works out for a couple of months. So far, it’s been fortunate enough that people have been very receptive about it, so it’s good.

On Following His Passion for Food and Culinary Arts:

Nik Sharma of A Brown Table on The Dinner Special podcast talking about his passion for culinary arts.

My husband has been my number one supporter of everything that I’ve done. As a kid growing up, I wanted to go to chef school. My mother said, “Well, a lot of chefs, all they do is they sit in the kitchens. I’ve seen them because this is what happens at work. They are sitting in those walk-in freezers peeling onions and cutting their fingers. I don’t think it’s meant for you.”

So I went the traditional route as all Goan Indian families push you to do. It’s either engineering, medicine or something more stable. I went with that and there were still those nagging feelings that I enjoy being creative. And I love biochemistry. That’s one of my things. And a lot of foods is especially based in the pastry field. It’s all about chemistry, like knowing biochemistry and why stuff does what it does in food.

I started noticing that as I started applying those rules from school into my food, my baking skills improved quite a bit. So in that sense, I found that I wasn’t really going to step away from all the knowledge I had gained in school, so it wasn’t a waste but it’s helped me quite a bit.

I talked to my husband a couple of months. We had moved from DC to San Francisco. I said, “I feel now that I’m at this stage where I want to take the dive. And if I don’t do it now, I’ll always regret it. I want to have a professional angle to my work.” So he said, “Well, okay. Go ahead. See what’s out there.”

I called out every bakery that was close by. No one responded. I had almost given up and finally got a call from this lady who says, “So you had called up both of our bakeries. It sounds like you’re really interested. Would you be willing to come in and talk with me?” I said, “Sure.”

So I went in with no expectations. Because a lot of the people that actually called me back, a few of them that actually called me back said, “You don’t have a culinary degree, so we’re not gonna take you in.” But then again, to that end, I had read a lot of blogs who had said, “Go out there. Get the experience before you do decide to do anything professionally because it’s so different. It’s not at all a glamorous field. You’re on your feet all day.”

So I met this lady and she was really nice and kind to give me a chance. She said, “Come on in. It’s definitely a hard business, especially pastry because you’ll get up at 5:00. You are in sometimes at 5:00 and you’re on your feet all day long. So it’s a hard life, but let’s do a trial phase. And if you like it and if we like you, we’ll keep you on.” So I did that for a long time, for a month.

The trial was a month, and then I asked them. I said, “Do you want me to come back? What’s going on? Because I’m still working at the other job I attend during the week. I’ve gone part-time on everything.” I said, “I’m still working in my pharmaceutical job and then this at the side. I’d really like to just really give it all up and come here? Do you want me?” She said, “Yes, we would love you to come back. But just remember, it’s going to be tough.” So that’s when I said, “Okay.”

I spoke to my husband at home. He said, “Go for it,” and did it and I’m happy I made the decision. It helps having someone who supports you emotionally during the whole phase because it’s scary. I’m still scared about what’s going to happen tomorrow because it’s such a risky business.

It’s worth the risk. I feel like if you feel like it’s something you’re questioning, give it a shot if you can. I’m not saying everybody can do it. It’s a financial risk. It’s a stability risk, I feel. So go ahead. Give it a shot if you can. Go for it a little bit. If you don’t like it, okay. At least you tried it. Move on. I think that’s critical.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

It’s called The Great British Baking Show on PBS. That’s one of my favorites.

America’s Test Kitchen is another great show to learn from, and Lidia’s Italy. That’s another really good show to learn about food and culture and flavors. I guess all those are all PBS shows.

What are some food blogs or food websites we have to know about?

Gosh, there are so many good ones so calling any specific ones up will be hard.

I’m sure everyone is familiar with the best blogs out there, so go ahead and look those up. But when it comes to some of the more different ones, I would say, feel free to choose a great community to get involved in and learn from them. America’s Test Kitchen, again. They have a great resource on their website, and The Kitchn is another great resource to learn from.

Who do you follow on Pinterest, Instagram, or Facebook that make you happy?

Dogs of Instagram?

I have a dog. I obsess over my dog like a crazy person. Yeah, so Dogs of Instagram.

Pinterest, I follow a lot of food photographers and photographers in general. So it’s hard to pinpoint any one person, but anything that I find different from stuff that I do and that visually speaks to me.

What is the most unusual or treasured item in your kitchen?

My ice cream maker. I love ice cream. I love making ice cream at home.

If and when I go to culinary school, and if I get to open a restaurant or a little shop, ice cream would be a special section. So yeah, ice cream maker.

Name one ingredient you used to dislike but now you love.

Radishes. I hated radishes as a kid. I thought they were the nastiest things that existed.

I still don’t like the large, white radishes. I still find the flavor a little disgusting. But radishes, the Easter egg radishes, I’ve come to appreciate that they look cute. They’re not that harsh in flavor, so I like those a lot.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

I do collect a lot of pastry books. Some of the ones that I really find useful are the ones, again, by America’s Test Kitchen because there’s a lot of talk process.

I like the books by Thomas Keller from Bouchon and The French Laundry. Those are really good books to own.

Also, a lot of the culinary textbooks from the CIA. If you don’t want to buy a lot of cookbooks, those are some of the good resources to learn from, so I always have those stocked.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

As of now, I would say Taylor Swift’s new album. I love that CD.

On Keeping Posted on Nik:

Nik Sharma of A Brown Table on The Dinner Special podcast talking about how to keep posted with Nik.

Instagram would be the best way. Then my second social media platform that I really use is Facebook. Those two are the two that I love.

Subscribe to The Dinner Special podcast

 

Filed Under: Podcast Tagged With: 2105 Saveur Food Blog Awards, A Brown Table, America's Test Kitchen, Better Homes and Garden, Bouchon, CIA, Culinary Arts, Dogs of Instagram, Food Blog, Food Blogger, IACP Awards, India, Indian Food, International Association of Best Culinary Professionals, Lidia's Italy, Nik Sharma, PBS, Photographer, Taylor Swift, The French Laundry, The Great British Baking Show, The Kitchn, Thomas Keller

008: Megan Voigt: What She Learned In Pastry School Besides Pastries

March 4, 2015 by Gabriel Leave a Comment

Megan Voigt of Hint of Vanilla on The Dinner Special podcast talking about why she started her food blog.
http://traffic.libsyn.com/thedinnerspecial/TDS008.mp3

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS

Megan Voigt of Hint of Vanilla on The Dinner Special podcast on What She Learned In Pastry School Besides Pastries

Hint of Vanilla

Megan is a pastry chef, and on Hint of Vanilla, she shares her kitchen experiments, trials and tribulations, and it’s also where she unwinds and relaxes after a long week.

I am so psyched to have Megan Voigt from Hint of Vanilla on the show today.

On Why She Started Her Blog:

Megan Voigt of Hint of Vanilla on The Dinner Special podcast talking about why she started her food blog.

It’s a bit of an odd story.

I was in university because I didn’t really know what else to do. That was just kind of what I expected. I thought I would find what I wanted to do while I was in university, but it never really ended up happening.

I was actually doing classical archeology, so that was very different from what I ended up doing now.

On one of my summers, I decided to go to South Africa to volunteer on a wildlife preserve for two months, and that was amazing, and I loved it. It was just a fun thing.

One night, one of the staff members was just kind of talking about what they would do if they could do anything in the world, and money was no object, and they’re asking us.

It came to me, and I said, “Well, you know, I like baking, so I’d probably just take some classes, maybe get a bit more into it,” because, at that point, I was just doing cookies or scones, nothing really fancy at all. She said, “Well, why don’t you do that now? You can still do that. You can do that!” I was like, “No, no way.”

That wasn’t even on my radar. It wasn’t even a possibility at the time, but after that, that kind of planted the seed for me, and then I started to think more about it. I did one more semester at university, and during that semester, all I could think about was pastry school and going to pastry school.

The problem was my parents were not very convinced because it was pretty sudden. They thought, “Mm, we don’t really want to just put you into a very expensive pastry school that might just be a phase.” So I decided to start a blog because I wasn’t living with my parents at the time. I had moved out. So if they could see that I was baking all the time, they could see the things that I was making, then they would kind of get behind my decision to go to pastry school.

That’s kind of how the blog started. It was just, “I want to show my parents what I’m making, and, you know, I might as well start a blog while I’m at it, I guess.”

They were like, “Do you even bake?” I’m like, “Yeah, yeah, I do sometimes.” But I didn’t really do it that often, and to be honest, I wasn’t 100% sure that I wanted to go to pastry school. It just was a kind of gut feeling.

But I started my blog in September of 2012, right at the beginning of that last semester of school, and the more I went with my blog, the more I convinced myself that this is what I wanted to do. I became so sure like, “Yeah, this is exactly what I want to do.” I love it, I love it.

It’s all I could think about was what am I going to make on the weekend for my blog, new ideas, getting books and everything. That January I enrolled in pastry school to start in July, and I stopped going to university, which my parents were not super happy about, but they kind of understood.

On Choosing Pastry School Over Culinary School:

Megan Voigt of Hint of Vanilla on The Dinner Special podcast talking about why she chose pastry school over culinary school.

I do like cooking at home, and I do like the fact that nothing’s measured, and it’s just all taste as you go. That’s really cool, but I would never want to do it as a career.

I’m not as passionate about it, and there is more of a demand for line cooks rather than pastry cooks because most places, restaurants or hotels, they’ll have a large savory team, but they might only have one or two people for pastry, or they might just buy in all the desserts.

So, if I had gotten a culinary degree as well as a pastry, I feel like people would have offered me culinary jobs, and then I would have kind of taken them hoping to get into pastry, but I never really would have.

I wanted to put all my effort into pastry and really just focus on that.

On What She Learned in Pastry School Besides Pastries:

Megan Voigt of Hint of Vanilla on The Dinner Special podcast talking about what she learned in pastry school besides pastries.

Working as a team was a big thing because obviously university it’s like everyone’s trying to get ahead. Everyone’s trying to beat the next person, and I’m a very independent person. I used to not like working as a team, but now I have no choice, and that was a big thing.

Even if you don’t necessarily get along with the people you work with, you have to work as a team, no matter what. You’ve got to leave all that drama at the door, and you’ve just got to work together really well. So that’s a good life skill for me as well.

On Her Love of Food:

Megan Voigt of Hint of Vanilla on The Dinner Special podcast talking about her love of food.

Growing up, my parents, they weren’t like super, super foodies. My parents got divorced when I was quite young, but they stayed friends. My dad all of a sudden had to cook for himself. We pretty much ate cereal for a lot of dinners, and we were fine with that, but then he’s like, “All right, I’ve really got to learn how to cook for my kids.” It went from him literally not even being able to make pizza . . . I remember he made this salty, salty pizza, one that was inedible, and now he’s an incredible, incredible cook.

Obviously, he’s still got his day job. He’s not a chef, but seeing him learn and teach himself how to cook and really, really loving it and seeing him in the kitchen all the time making these meals and not having prepackaged stuff, all of it was from scratch.

And that was just normal for me growing up. “Oh, yeah, I’ll make this from scratch or make that or fresh vegetables.” We had a garden as well, which has been a huge thing for me. I wish I had a backyard for a garden.

Just being exposed to that was a really big thing. I hadn’t really realized it until the past year or two that it really had a big impact on me, having that presence of home-cooked food and really taking the time and the effort to prepare a meal rather than getting takeout.

I bake for him all the time. He lives very close to me, so I go over for dinners all the time, and he’ll cook, and I’ll bring dessert, or I’ll bring bread, and he absolutely loves my bread. He just goes nuts, and my stepmom, she got into bread as well, so I’ve been kind of teaching her a little bit. It’s awesome.

It’s funny because my brother actually brews his own beer, and so he brings the beer, I bring the bread, Dad brings the food, and there we go! It works out great.

We’ve joked about opening a restaurant so many times, but I don’t know if it’ll ever happen.

Tips For Making Bread For the First Time:

Megan Voigt of Hint of Vanilla on The Dinner Special podcast giving tips about making bread for the first time.

First of all, you don’t need a bread maker. Your bread maker is your hands.

When you just get the right kind of bread, it’s so easy. You do it once, and you’re like, “Oh, my God! Why has it taken me this long to make bread this good by myself?”

I was also a little bit intimidated about yeast and stuff, because it’s not like, “Oh, wait thirty minutes and it’s ready to go.” You kind of have to feel it and look at it and see, and if you don’t know what you’re looking for, it can definitely be intimidating. But if you mess up, it’s just some flour and some water. It’s not like you’re wasting a lot of money on that, and the results are really amazing.

For me, it’s just find a good recipe, preferably one of those no-knead recipes like I’ve got on my blog. Almost all the breads on my blog are a long fermentation and very little work, just a lot of time.

Those are great breads to really start off with because they’re very forgiving. If you let it proof a little bit too less or too much, it’s all right, it still produces a pretty good bread. Once you make it for the first time, and you taste the bread, it’s an addiction. You can’t go back.

Once you know the basics of it, you can just kind of really do whatever you want. A lot of the recipes that I have on my blog… I have a few basic ones, and then I just added stuff to it, like, “Yeah, I’m going to put some olives in this one, sure, or I’m going to put this into it!” As long as you’re not adding too much moisture or too much inclusions.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

Top Chef is my favorite. Chopped can be good and bad.

What are some food blogs or websites that we have to know about?

I follow so many. Food52 is great because they feature blogs from all over, and so it’s a great way to really get introduced to a lot of different kinds of blogs.

One of my favorite blogs is My Name is Yeh.

Although, she just got married, so I don’t know if the blog is going to be the same anymore. Her photography is really great. I really enjoy her photography, and the things she makes, it’s very fun. It’s very kind of just messing around and fun flavors and just fun things.

Who do you follow on Pinterest, Instagram or Twitter that make you happy?

Oh, my gosh. Well, once again, I follow a lot of bloggers on Pinterest and on Instagram.

There’s this one blogger I follow on Instagram. I don’t like dogs very much. I’m very much a cat person, but her name’s Adrianna, and her blog is called A Cozy Kitchen. She has photos of her little corgi, and sometimes she’ll have photos of a nicely styled shoot with food, but then her dog is actually eating something in the corner, and it’s adorable, and it kinda makes me want a dog.

What is something all home cooks should have in their pantry?

A scale, a digital scale is 100% what you have to have.

I know it seems like “Ew, only professionals use scales or measurements like that,” but really, cups and things like that are just not cutting it anymore. It’s never going to be consistent. It’s never precise. You know, if you fill it a little bit more than a cup, you’re like, “Eh, whatever, it’ll be fine.”

For some recipes, yeah, it’s okay, but for some it’s not.

But with grams it’s so easy. You’re just like, “Okay, 76 grams.”  It’s a number.

If you want to half a recipe, or if you want to double a recipe, it’s just simple. I was always really terrible with fractions at school. So grams for me are just 100% the way to go and a kitchen scale.

I recommend every person who’s into baking… scale!  Get a scale!

Name one ingredient you cannot live without?

Vanilla beans. Absolutely vanilla beans or, I mean, vanilla paste.

It’s very similar, but to me, I love vanilla, I mean, my blog is called Hint of Vanilla.

I think real vanilla beans and real vanilla paste is just such an incredible ingredient. The smell and the taste, it’s so amazing! It’s so fragrant, so flavorful, and it’s such a classic flavor combination of… well, vanilla can go with anything.

I think vanilla extract is nice but the vanilla beans are really, really where you should be investing your money.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

Bouchon Bakery by Thomas Keller. I have used so many recipes in that cookbook. It’s unbelievable.

I love the detail he puts into all the recipes and all the kind of reasoning behind it. It’s not just do this and do that and do this. It’s do this because, blah, blah, blah, and do that because, and so that gives a lot of knowledge as well as, “Oh, yeah, you’re learning the recipe,” but you’re learning the ins and outs of it as well as you’re doing it.

And Elements of Desserts by Frances J. Migoya is a really cool one. I’ve used less recipes just because there’s hundreds of them in there, and a lot of them can be difficult or they require really specialized ingredients or specialized tools, which obviously I don’t have.

I really love just getting inspiration from those books. I go look through it, and I’ll get ideas, and like, “Oh, I love those flavor combinations” or “I love that idea for that cake or something.” I really get a lot of inspiration just by looking through the pages.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

That’s a tough one because I normally just put my phone on shuffle.

Coldplay’s one of my favorite bands. A lot of their stuff is pretty slow, but Viva la Vida and Mylo Xyloto, those are two albums that kind of are more upbeat.

Especially Mylo Xyloto, there are some songs in there that are really kinda dance-y songs. That’s probably one of my go-to ones is Mylo Xyloto by Coldplay.

Keep Posted on Megan:

Megan Voigt of Hint of Vanilla on The Dinner Special podcast talking about keeping posted on what she

I’ve got a Facebook page for my blog. It’s under the same name, A Hint of Vanilla. I also have an Instagram account, which is under my name, MeganLeeVoigt.

You could also follow me on bloglovin’, which is a great website for keeping up with all the blogs that you follow in one place, and you can actually find all of those social media websites on my blog. I’ve got a link to them, and, yeah, you can stay posted on all the wonderful things that I make.

Have Megan's Special Bread Recipe Sent To You Now:

    First Name (required)

    Your Email (required)

    Filed Under: Podcast Tagged With: A Cozy Kitchen, Baking, Bouchon Bakery, Bread, Chopped, Coldplay, Desserts, Elements of Desserts, Food Blog, Food Blogger, Food52, Frances J. Migoya, Hint of Vanilla, Making Bread, Megan Voigt, My Name is Yeh, Mylo Xyloto, Pastry Chef, Pastry School, Thomas Keller, Top Chef, Viva la VIda

    Hello! I'm Gabriel Soh, home cook, food enthusiast and your host of The Dinner Special podcast.
    Everything here on The Dinner Special is an experiment, just like with cooking. Thank you for listening and being part of the adventure.

    Enjoy the podcast?

    Click HERE to subscribe, rate and review on iTunes now.

    Let’s Keep in Touch!

    Copyright © 2023 · Epik on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in